Scott Baker To Undergo Season-Ending Operation

The Twins have announced that right-hander Scott Baker will miss the 2012 season to undergo and recover from elbow surgery, MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger reports (Twitterlinks). The operation will repair Baker's flexor pronator tendon and rehab will take six months. Fortunately for Baker, his ulnar collateral ligament is fine.

Baker pitched 134 2/3 innings last year, posting a 3.14 ERA with 8.2 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9. The Twins have a $9.25MM club option for his services in 2013 under an extension signed before the 2009 season. They may face a difficult decision this fall, when they have to exercise the option or let Baker walk.

Of course it was a bad situation to begin with. They had two injury-prone starters, three other mediocre starters, and a bullpen that may or may not have panned out. At this point, the best option is to keep Hendriks in the rotation, and maybe sign Roy Oswalt.

It won’t be the Twins. Minnesotans need to be realistic and get their heads out of the clouds. If you want to “dream big”, think more along the lines of somebody like Joel Piniero (who just signed a minor-league contract with the O’s). Maybe Armando Galarraga, who the O’s released? That’s somebody of the Twins’ caliber. No All-Stars, but AAAA guys instead. This will help you out: Does the player that the Twins want have any interest from other teams in baseball? If YES, the Twins will not sign him. If NO, he will consider signing with the Twins.

Those are the only players that will want to sign with the Twins. My point was they have no chance at at even average starting pitchers, let alone somebody on Roy Oswalt’s level. The Twins need to sign minor league free agents and just hope for the best.

Hope they don’t go calling for yet another of those rubbish throwers they already have (had) a rotation full of already in John Lannan from Washington.

Why pay someone 5m like that, much less give anything up when the Twins probably have something (anything) at AAA who can take Baker’s place and do as good as Lannan.

There has to be more rotational pieces like Pinero, Ohlendorf etc.. floating around and something else to remember.. There will be several pitchers we will all recognize by name who are sitting at AAA level right now with opt out dates in May, April etc.. Some will be seeing this Twins situation (example) and notice a possible chance.

Ohlendorf and Aaron Cook are just 2 with opt out dates coming up by the 1st couple of weeks in May and there has to be many more.

Carlos Silva is also around, he was released the 2nd week of ST with some kind of injury issue, though forget what exactly it was.

Right, it’s Gardenhire’s fault that the rotation is composed of #5 starters and the farm system is torched because they’ve lost the ability to scout and effectively develop players.

I don’t like Gardenhire personally, but you’re completely and utterly delusional if you think the Twins would EVER fire him. He’s got the job until he decides he doesn’t want it anymore, and you can’t blame 2011 or the impending train wreck of 2012 on him.

One hundred percent agree. I’m so sick and tired of this “defense and chemistry” ball the team tries to build around. Ironically, I was at the game tonight and saw Willingham and Doumit flat out embarrass themselves in the outfield, and Span really isn’t a great CF himself either. Obviously those are important aspects, but World Series are won from aces and big bats! I mean, it’s like the Twins have avoided top talent and played wayyyy too conservatively in the draft. However, Sano looks to be a bright spot for the future, until Gardenhire decides he doesn’t like him because he boots a ball in Spring Training and can actually hit over 20 homeruns.